How to make the node.js server also send js files? - javascript

I have a node.js file server running which (when visited) returns a html content. Also in the same directory of the node.js file, there is a javascript file called test.js. Also in the html content being returned, I need to load that javascript file. However in the html content, being returned, which comes out to be called index.html, the script looks like
<script type="text/javascript" src="test.js"></script>
But the server isn't sending the test.js file, its only sending the index.html file, and the script link is loading it relatively from the same directory.
Now I don't want to give the url to the test.js file. I want the node.js file to also send the test.js file, so that it ends up in the same directory as index.html. And then index.html can load it from the same directory.
Is there a way I can specify in the node.js with code to also send the test.js file?
Thanks.

Are you familiar with Express, as dandavis mentioned? Express allows you to set a directory for your static files. See my standard config below:
app
.use('view engine', jade)
.use(express.compress())
.use(express.limit('10mb'))
.use(express.bodyParser())
.use(app.router)
.use(stylus.middleware({
src: __dirname + '/www',
compile: function(str, path) {
return stylus(str)
.set('filename', path)
.set('compress', false)
.set('warn', true);
}
}))
.use(express.static(__dirname + '/www'))
.use(express.logger());
The important part here is second from the bottom. Essentially, Express now knows to look for any assets you specify in your HTML within that static directory. For me, I create a folder titled WWW within my server folder, then add to it my JS, CSS, and images.
For example, say I create the "stylus" folder within my WWW folder, and add to it store.css. My link to that CSS asset would be the following in my Jade template:
link(rel="stylesheet", type="text/css", href="stylus/store.css")
Express knows to look for that asset relative to the __dirname + '/www' path, and thus locates the "stylus" folder and the CSS assets it contains. Hope this helps, and that I haven't ventured away from your intent!

Related

load multiple file in node js by express

how to load html file along with css file and javascrip file in node js by express?
when I enter localhost:8080\about, load the about us page that contain html,css and js.
for that in your main express js file, you are going to want to add this line at the top of the file
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/pathToStaticFiles'));
pathToStaticFiles will be the path to your static file, (usually called assets or public). Then all your html files will read from that directory so if your file path for the css file is ./static/css/style.css the html file will call from ./css/style.css. Hope this helped.

How can I render a HTML file with side js files using express in nodejs?

I have a index.html file, which i want to send, using
app.get('/', (req, res) => {
res.sendFile(`${__dirname}/index.html`)
});
Also, I have some js files in this directory, which I want to use in HTML by
<script src="./js/index.js"></script>
So, how can I make these js files accessible in HTML?
You can use what #fedeteka suggested.
app.use('/js', express.static('js'));
The example above basically makes any file in the js folder to be accessed by the /js path. For example, if you have your file tree set up like
Main Folder
-----js
----------script.js
----------another.js
----------asmanyasyouwant.js
These files can be accessed by going to localhost:{yourport}/js/script.js or localhost:{yourport}/js/another.js, etc.
If you set it up this way, you can have
<script src="/js/index.js"></script>
as long as you have a file called index.js in the js folder.

Cannot find javascript file node.js

I linked my javascript file in one of my HTML pages but I keep getting the error http://localhost:3000/users/javascript/users-edit.js.
Here is my application structure:
app/public/javascript/users-edit.js
app/views/users-edit.handlebars
In my app.js file I have:
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));
In my users-edit.handlebars file, I clearly link in my .js file:
<script type="text/javascript" src="javascript/users-edit.js"></script>
Note - I have several other handlebars files where I link the .js file in the exact same manner, but they all work.
Can someone help?
You're asking for /users/javascript/users-edit.js but the file is in /javascript/users-edit.js
Presumably when you said src="javascript/users-edit.js" you forgot to take into account the URL of the page including that HTML might not be in the root of the site, and you should have said src="/javascript/users-edit.js" (explicitly starting the URL resolution from the root instead of the current directory).

How do you change file paths in Angular app?

I'm looking at this sample Angular application.
In the index.html file, there are lines like
<script type="text/javascript" src="/static/angular.js"></script>
However, upon closer inspection there are no folders in the project called static.
How does this work? How does angular locate these references?
Angular has nothing to do with this. It is the express server which takes care of the paths.
Take a look at server/config.js. You will see staticUrl: '/static' mentioned there.
Now open server/server.js (server.js is the script which runs before anything else runs in the app so all the configuration is done within this file) and on line 21 you will see require('./lib/routes/static').addRoutes(app, config);. This requires the static.js file which instructs the app to use /static (mentioned in the config.js file) as the path for static files such as CSS and javascript files.
This is a server side phenomenon. There is a middleware in this file server/lib/routes/static.js :
line : 9
app.use(config.server.staticUrl, express.static(config.server.distFolder));
What this does is : if any http request is started from config.server.staticUrl (whitch is /static for this app) the server tries to respond with the resource that are kept in a config.server.distFolder folder (which is client/dist for this app).
For example :
when you request to this url /static/angular.js the middleware tries to find angular.js file in client/dist/. Because client/dist directory is mapped to the url which starts with /static by the middleware.
When that HTML file is processed by the browser, the layout engine is making a separate HTTP request to the server to download the resource in question:
/static/angular.js
Since all of that is handled by the server routing mechanism there doesn't have to be a folder named static in client code. Your example is using Node.js Express routing which maps /static routes to actual physical paths.
Here is a piece of code that configures static routes:
https://github.com/angular-app/angular-app/blob/master/server/config.js
The important parts are:
staticUrl: '/static', // The base url from which we serve static files (such as js, css and images)
And the destination folder that /static maps to:
distFolder: path.resolve(__dirname, '../client/dist'), // The folder that contains the application files (note that the files are in a different repository) - relative to this file
Per the documentation the dist folder contains the Grunt build results, and if you take a look at the gruntfile you will find all the grunt configuration that makes this possible.
https://github.com/angular-app/angular-app/blob/master/client/gruntFile.js

Restify static serve exposing other files

I'm using restify for node to create a simple API. I want to have a directory /public where people can simply browse to that directory and download the file they browse to.
To accomplish this, I have used in /routes/public.js:
server.get(/\/public\/?.*/, restify.serveStatic({
directory: __dirname + '/../'
}));
as my file structure is like:
index.js
/routes
public.js
/public
files
to
be
served
however, I have noticed a big security issue. By browsing to http://domain.com/public/../index.js the source code can be downloaded! Obviously, I do not want this to happen.
Is this a permissions job or is there something else I should be doing? Thanks
Restify does check to make sure that you're not serving files outside of the specified directory. You're specifying the root directory for static files as __dirname + '/../' which is the root of the application. That means all of the files in your application can be served via static. If you only want files in the ./public/ folder served by restify, you have to use that as the directory.
The problem stems from the confusing (and in my opinion poorly planned) way they handle mapping routes to static files. As you said, the full route is included in the path of the requested file. This leads to awkward situations like this one. You have a public folder, and also want the route to include public. That means you have to have a ./public/public folder for your resources. An alternative approach would be to not include public in your route. You can setup your static handler like this:
server.get(/.*/, restify.serveStatic({
directory: './public/'
}));
Then a request to /somefile.txt would route to `./public/somefile.txt'.

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